Ask Carroll

[steve shearer]

Fcuking hell Tonks, you're going to die with the music in you because you are scared you might sacrifice being a "well rounded " person. That's just middle class conceit writ large, or you're projecting from the bogan trash that ruined your Bali holiday. Take a book, go talk to Dr Rod Kirsop or the guys from SurfAids or Dr Phil who hangs at G-Land. They all charge and live "well-rounded" lives.
As much as anyone who's ever lived anywhere at anytime on this planet you are in the enviable position of being to craft you're own destiny.

34. You've got ten years of steady improvement in you. You could set goals, that what high achievers do isn't it? Work your way up the ladder.

[steve shearer]

Andy which island?

[andy2476]

Not sure

[MrMik]

Mr Mick, interesting project. I think one of the challenges is finding surfers who are knowledgeable/ experienced enough to associate all the different characteristics you are researching to the fins as opposed to the board itself. When it comes to fins many surfers really don't know a whole lot let alone being able to break down all the different elements ( other than what is in the fin company marketing blurb) and seperate those elements from the elements produced by the board itself. Good luck with the project though.

Good points.
I don't have a very clear understanding of the elements myself, hence my attempt to get some help with formulating the best questions.

Separating board effects from fin effects should not be much of an issue, because the surfers will have to bring their own "go to" single fin board.

I'm also running into a problem with insufficient space on the display of my smartphone (which will be used for data entry in the water), so I need to weed out one of the following questions:
1) Surfer Name ? *
2) Still Blinded ? *
3) Overall Rating ? *
4) Speed Rating ?
5) Hold rating ?
6) Drive rating ?
7) Pivot rating ?
8 ) Fin in Board : **

I think the questions marked with * are essential and can be answered by any surfer.

Nr 8 ) "Fin in Board" will be answered by the person who changes the fins over, after the other questions have been answered by the test-surfer. That way, a (almost) double blind test can be done with just 2 surfers in the water.

One of the remaining 4 questions has to go to make room on the screen.

I'm not so certain what the difference between "drive" and "speed" is. To me, "Drive" means something like "rapid acceleration when turning", but also "increased g-force while turning hard". And without ability to "hold", neither speed nor drive will result, so they all hang together and overlap and interact.

So, which of the remaining four do you think is least definable and/or least likely to be assessed and answered consistently by average surfers?
Drive?
Speed?
Hold?
Pivoting?

Probably best to leave "Lift" out altogether, or not?

[spork]

There is no easy way Tonks, my daughter has just got a job in Eden so I guess I'm gonna be testing myself at Merimbula bay sometime in the future.

[alakaboo]

Fcuking hell Tonks, you're going to die with the music in you <snip>

I find the suggestion that placing other things above surfing somehow indicates a poorly-spent life fairly myopic and disrespectful. We all make our own choices, only Tonks can know what he will rue when he is old and grey.

I realise this is a surfing site, but it is the almost total absence of a laser-like focus on surfing improvement that keeps me coming back.

When I encounter someone with a single goal in life (be it making money, winning a title, having the perfect house, perfect board etc.) my feelings tend more to pity than to envy.

[Nick Carroll]

Fcuking hell Tonks, you're going to die with the music in you because you are scared you might sacrifice being a "well rounded " person. That's just middle class conceit writ large, or you're projecting from the bogan trash that ruined your Bali holiday. Take a book, go talk to Dr Rod Kirsop or the guys from SurfAids or Dr Phil who hangs at G-Land. They all charge and live "well-rounded" lives.
As much as anyone who's ever lived anywhere at anytime on this planet you are in the enviable position of being to craft you're own destiny.

34. You've got ten years of steady improvement in you. You could set goals, that what high achievers do isn't it? Work your way up the ladder.

steve you are out of line with this massive inappropriate value judgement on how someone else lives his life.

tonks asked for some fairly simple advice, just stay off him.

[el rancho]

coops will probably know about samoa

my mate went years ago but he was a booger at the time, said it was fun as though

[petulance]

So tonks, out of curiousity, is staying at the Bukit in Bali for most of the duration of your annual leave an option?

[philw]

Re Samoa. Yes, lots of surf. Imperfect, shallow, sectiony reef waves abound. If the waves aren't out front of yr location, access can take some organising, and about. Look up coconuts / boulders

[MrMik]

It will probably look somewhat like this and should be repeatable across time, locations and operators.

At start of data entry:

After wave(s) without becoming cognisant of the fin:

After seeing or feeling the fin by accident:

The drop-down menus for data selection look like this:

This Android app is available as a free version (which I could not get to work)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... .dataentry
or the full version for around AU$12.- https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ols.dempro

The database, once fully developed and refined, could quite easily be shared by email and then be used in a multi-location study. It can be edited on a PC to make things easier and at the moment it looks like this:

How about a version to add more credibility to the infomercial?

[alakaboo]

Mate I'm sure your heart is in the right place but if you paddled up to me and asked me to fill out a survey I'd tell you to fcuk off.
And I'm speaking as someone who surveys people on beaches for work, so I can assure you that will be on the civil end of the scale of responses you are likely to get.

I also can't figure out your end game, because you are trying to quantify something which is largely subjective and your results will be junk.

By all means get a common/neutral board and test a bunch of fins, that bit is great fun and you'll learn a lot but knowing the flex is 3.6+-0.7 and the drive is 2.6+-0.3 is about as useful as tits on a bull

[el rancho]

this thread has to be the cause of nick's latest midlife crisis

[el rancho]

here's a hot tip for any egghead surf product researcher

surfers classify surfing products like boards and fins in either of these two categories:

1) goes sick
2) goes shit

[MrMik]

Mate I'm sure your heart is in the right place but if you paddled up to me and asked me to fill out a survey I'd tell you to fcuk off.
And I'm speaking as someone who surveys people on beaches for work, so I can assure you that will be on the civil end of the scale of responses you are likely to get.

I also can't figure out your end game, because you are trying to quantify something which is largely subjective and your results will be junk.

By all means get a common/neutral board and test a bunch of fins, that bit is great fun and you'll learn a lot but knowing the flex is 3.6+-0.7 and the drive is 2.6+-0.3 is about as useful as tits on a bull

It's not like that. The participants will be wiling and keen and pre-enrolled, meeting for the purpose of trying out different fins without fooling themselves into confirming their pre-conceived notions about certain fins.
It might never be much use for broader application, but I bet I will find enough McCoy riders that would be happy to meet a few times somewhere between Noosa and Lennox and swap boards and fins for fun. They'll get to try out the Ben Lexcen Starfin vs original Geoff McCoy Gullwing fin vs the Roy Stewart BLEF Gull-Whale fin vs Dolphin fin vs. Body Glove soft fin. It'll be great fun.

But apart from that, as I mentioned earlier, 2 surfers (or one surfer and a coach) are enough for a repeatable double blind experiment. One swaps fins, the other surfs and then self-rates the fin performance. That could allow a top professional surfer to do objective fin testing for him/herself, to find the best fin setup without prejudice. I assume that could be important when minuscule degrees of change in performance need to be assessed.

[alakaboo]

That's all fine but why go all CPA on it?

You'll get results that imply a level of precision that just isn't real

You may well find that the psychological impact of the fin appearance is greater than the difference in shape

[MrMik]

That's all fine but why go all CPA on it?

You'll get results that imply a level of precision that just isn't real

You may well find that the psychological impact of the fin appearance is greater than the difference in shape

Exactly. And that would be very interesting.

A follow-up experiment could then be done with identical fins that differ only in colour. Red might go faster!

My guess is that most surfers can not tell which fin is in their board unless it's quite an extreme kind of fin, or an extremely capable surfer.

A big problem is of course that it is practically impossible to prevent cheating if an individual decides to pretend not to know which fin is in the board.

[alakaboo]

I categorically did not say that last bit